


You were Haunting

by Emile



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Blood and Gore, Fenris is a Spirit of Purpose, Ghosts, M/M, Secrets, Spirits, Talking To Dead People, dead bodies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 14:50:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7622905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emile/pseuds/Emile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Anders gets hired to cleanse the Danarius estate of any ethereal beings, he wasn't prepared for what he would have to face. Who is this Spirit of Purpose and what has been going on in that house? And what exactly has happened to make the Spirit like this? The answer might take him deeper into this rabbit hole than he is willing to go...</p>
            </blockquote>





	You were Haunting

**Author's Note:**

> **Take heed of the warnings in the tags!** This isn't a story for the fainthearted. Of course I would love it if my story gets read, but I would love it even more for everyone to feel safe and comfortable. ^^  
>  The chapters will be named after the songs I listened to while writing (I tend to also use bits and pieces of said songs in the story itself).

Anders stood close to the corner of main street, head directed to the sky, eyes closed... he breathe in deeply through his nose, following the air in his mind, to his stomach, then released it through his mouth. _We need to get to work._ Anders knew that, he did. _Then get a cab and get on it._ Anders opened his eyes and rolled them at the sky. _Yes, perfect, because I hadn't thought of that yet._

He lift his hand, then waited for a cab to pull up, “Hightown Estates, 3C,” Anders spoke, facing forward as he adjust his seatbelt blindly. The driver glanced at him with a raised brow, then start the car. “That estate usually doesn't get visited outside of Halloween.” he comment, but he seemed to know better than to continue asking. Anders had simply shrugged it away as he looked out of the window.

He had nearly drifted off on the long way from Low- to Hightown, but was abruptly shaken awake by the imposing sight of the Danarius mansion. The current owner wanted to sell it, but had hired him- well, _them_ \- to get rid of the lingering presence first. Last few cases had been flukes, easily solved by burning up some candles and putting up a show for the relatives left behind. Anders toyed with the keys first, then stuck it in the keyhole. It didn't give at first, but after a few pushes and some insistent key turning, it finally budged.

The door opened creaking and Anders looked over the door. _Rusted hinges and rotten wood. Nothing supernatural about that._ He stopped death in his track when there was the flickering of a candle close to them. Closer, with every apparent step.

Anders didn't make any sudden movement, just looked from the corner of his eyes as a figure came his way. A young women, a girl of less than ten years old, and an elf. She was floating a few inches above the ground, her dirtied dress fading into mist the closer it hung to the floor. She held a candle so tightly in her hands that it shook. She turned slowly towards the door, then gasped and dropped the candle.

The entire thing disappeared before it hit the floor, as if it had never been there, and for a moment Anders thought he had gone crazy. _A lingering memory,_ Justice remind him _She must have been important to the ghost we will face._

 _ **If** it will come out. _ Anders replied in thoughts, not the most optimistic. It had taken him a while to get used to this way of talking, but lately it had been all he did. He looked to the left once he heard the distant sound of footsteps again, then watched as the same girl walked down the stairs. Like a recording put on replay.

“Hello?” he tried, cautiously stepping in, but the image stepped right through him. Anders froze to the spot as she did, feeling an icy chill run through his entire body. Justice wailed. “C-Can you hear me?” Anders stuttered, now tilting his head to the left. He was just in time to see the candle drop, then hastily looked back to see if she would come walking down stairs again. After a few silent seconds, she did, but now that he was concentrated on her, he could hear her hum.

It was a song that he wasn't familiar with, but she was quietly muttering it to herself under her breath. _She would have made a great spirit of Hope,_ the voice of Justice spoke, less insistent and still a little overwhelmed from the encounter they just had.

 

 

_Tel'enfenim, da'len_

_Irassal ma ghilas_

_[Ma garas mir renan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl3CmzQY1So) _

 

 

Hope...

“Why are you showing me this?” he wondered, stepping out of the little girl's path. The song should sound calming, but her voice was too fearful for that. Anders inched closer to the unhinged door to the left and took a moment for his eyes to get used to the dark. The moving light source made it even harder than usual.

There were several blood splatters, but no bodies. _Strange,_ Anders thought, trying to take in the rest of the dimly lit room. There was the door the girl came down from, old book cases covering the entire length of two walls, and a broken table. The furniture was scattered around as if there had been a scuffle. There was blood in an almost overwhelming amount. _Something terrible must have happened here._

Anders carefully picked one of the books off the floor and tried to read it, but it didn't make much sense to him. _Can you read this?_ He had hoped Justice could be of some use, but the spirit remind him of his age and add _I cannot read old Tevene, I never lived there._ He had sighed in annoyance, but then thanked him for at least knowing the origin. He placed the book on the table, but the already damaged wood cracked under even that small weight and the table collapsed. “Whoops.”

Just as the wood shattered, another noise could be heard form his right. A closed door. _Oh, that can't be good._ Anders gulped, but neared the old oaken door under Justice's insistence. “May I come in?” he asked before actually moving to open the door.

When no answer came, he gave the handle a try. The rusty handle broke off at the slightest bit of pressure and Anders released a frustrated sound before throwing it down. The slick thud when it land in the thick and lumpy blood on the floor made his stomach turn.

Anders was anything but a quitter though, so he pressed his shoulder against the door and put his weight into it. The wood creaked first, but when he used most of his weight, the door suddenly swept open, like the strength keeping it closed suddenly released it. Anders stumbled forward, his feet unable to get grip on the slippery kitchen floor. The feeling of the substance he fell in could only be described as thick gunk with chunks in it, only some of the chunks were moving and...

“Oh-- Oh-! Maker's breath!” he struggled back, hands moving up to cover his mouth and stop himself from vomiting. Anders shook his head, tears in his eyes from both the smell and realization he was covered in the only thing that might have been left of the girl that had resembled Hope.

He swallowed thickly, then tried to keep himself together again, pulling himself up on the marble kitchen counter. It could easily support his weight. “Why are you showing me this?” he asked again, now more insistent, though his voice was still shaking.

His eyes got attracted by something moving in the corner of his eyes, something that he had mistaken for one of the statues that had been all around the mansion before. It's eyes glowed faintly and they widened almost comically when he realized Anders was looking _right_ at him. It might have been funny, in any other situation. “You can see me?”

The voice sound low and throaty, filled with as much emotions as his expressions, and it shot right to his knees. Anders had to concentrate to keep himself steady again, but didn't avert his gaze “Of course I can see you.” he respond, convinced that the elf-ish creature was impossible to miss. Now that he looked at him better, there were dimly lit markings in intricate swirls all over his form. It looked like lyrium. _It sounds like lyrium, too._ Justice confirmed. “I have never seen a being like you before.”

The being seemed confused for a moment, tilting his head to the left, then to the right, needing the time to take it all in. “And never before have _I_ seen two spirits inhabit the same body.” it spoke, and now that they were on the 'I have never'-subject, Anders decide to add “And no one has never noticed _that_ before.”

He inhaled shakily when the being inched closer, instinctively backing up and in doing so pressing his back against the kitchen counter “Who are you?” he asked, the being now so close that he could reach out for him if he wanted to. Justice advised against.

“I am a Spirit of Purpose.” it (he?) answered dryly, straightening from his slightly hunched position and tilting his head up a little. This seemed a position he seemed to need to remind himself to take, since he kept slightly hunching forward every time Anders met his eyes.

“That... was not an answer to my question.” Anders tried, meeting eyes with the being, if that were his eyes (?) he had never met a ghost quite so... _vivid_ before. Purpose tilt his head to the other side again, his hair swooshing along with the movement “It is the only answer I'm willing to give.”

Was that a smirk? Anders wasn't sure, as the self-proclaimed spirit turned around and moved away from him.

This being was not hovering over the floor, the markings made his entire body oddly visible, his steps along the floorboards even made footsteps appear in the bloody mess on the floor. _He is taunting us!_ Justice's complaints just now reached his ears, as Anders had been too engrossed in his curiosity for this being.

 

Anders hadn't been aware of the fear that had been quietly seeping in to him until he actually physically started shaking it off. He also tried wiping away the blood, but he was only able to smudge it, making it at least a little less sticky. “Someone should have called the cops years ago.” he spoke out loud to make sure Purpose would still know he was there “This isn't right.”

 _I am not sure if talking to him like this will turn out well, Anders,_ Justice warned. The spirit seemed to get a little antsy. _This ghost calls himself a spirit and he can see me, nothing good can come out of this._ Anders physically shrugged to dismiss him and stubbornly pressed on, reaching for the door Purpose had just phased through. “How long ago did this happen?” he asked “Were you there?”

He passed through the door, into the next room, and the next, following the ghost through the maze-like house. Anders tried not to look at the gruesome torture devices and blood rituals around him, unsure if what he was seeing was real or if it were just figments Purpose was projecting onto him. _Stop following him, Anders, this doesn't feel right. He is too strong._ “I'm here to help.” he remind him.

 

“This...” Anders had eventually stopped walking and gestured around himself, into the dark. There were several dead bodies, bleeding out, lyrium mixed into their blood. The dimly lit lyrium was the only light cast in the room. “Is this what they did to you?”

Purpose didn't turn whole-bodily, but his head turned impossibly far, until they met eyes while the ghost was still standing the other way. His face pulled into a snarl and the lyrium on his being flared into life. Too strongly. Too bright. “ _You_ did this!” he bellowed, then turned the rest of his body in the blink of an eye and leaped through him.

His entire body stopped working the moment the ghost phased through him, even his heart paused and his lungs refused to absorb oxygen from the air. He was dead. This was the end.

Only it wasn't, because Anders was left gasping for air as soon as Purpose had passed, stumbling and catching himself. He caught himself on the door he had been in front of before he followed the ghost and looked down to still find the broken door handle laying in the blood.

“You should leave.” Purpose told him, not looking his way, but towards the vision of the girl making her way from the stairs, through the trashed room, into the hallway, where she would eventually drop her candle and disappear.

He looked so sad and desolate, but Anders wasn't sure if he would be able to help him move on. “Yeah, I guess you're right.” he agreed, feeling Justice stir inside of him. The spirit was just as conflicted as he was.

As Anders had made his way to the door, he stopped before he closed it behind him.

“I will come back tomorrow.”

 


End file.
